Why do you pay so much for a lens?

This is a great video/animation showing how a Canon 500mm f/4L IS gets made, starting with a pile of dust.

http://www.canon.com/camera-museum/tech/l_plant/

Pretty much explains it all.
I had no idea so much of the process was done by hand, genius.
People happily pay thousands for a piece of glass 'art' but are amazed when they see the price of a good pro lens. As far as I'm concerned, these guys are building art, but for them, the art is in the precision.

On the subject of going green.

Following on from our chats on recycling and going green at TFC the couple of weeks and our attempts to separate our rubbish into the types of recyclables we know, Fraser read an article that is kind of related in the Daily Telegraph this morning that we thought was worth a wider audience.

We use solely rechargeable batteries at home in every appliance we can and at work where we have the opportunity, but we were intrigued by this article.

To read this online, click here.

CS3 course at Birmingham

Hey guys,

For those of you that attended the CS3 course, you can leave your feedback here: We'd appreciate the feedback positive or negative however try and keep it constructive!

Dpreview bought by Amazon

Wow, my favorite camera review site, dpreview, has been bought by my favorite online bookshop, Amazon!

Phil Askey must be a very happy man.

Personally I think this is a good thing, maybe manufacturers will send him stuff earlier.
But there are many naysayers on the forums, all insisting that the corporate backing will ruin everything.

Quote of the Day

Heard in London:

"I'm trying to get Luis Vuitton to make me a tripod bag"

Now I'd love to see that!
I wonder where I can get a Prada photographer's vest?

Strobist seen in London!

We met our new friend from across the pond, David Hobby, blogger of the brilliant Strobist website, drop in to TFC London on Friday.

David has been over in the UK hosting two, one day seminars at London's UCL just down the road from us and dropped in to pick up some supplies, gel filters etc and stayed to have a chat.

He really is a genuinely nice guy and an extremely knowledgable and talented photographer. (We're not just saying that because of his great review of the Elinchrom Skyport, honest!)

In store he also met up with Neal Turner, a customer of long-standing who runs the photographer education site www.dg28.com, who just happened to be here at the same time.

As you can imagine, the air was full of web chat, or whatever it should be called and we left them to it for a while.

Anyhow, check out both the sites and see the excellent images.

Up for the Treble!

Had a great weekend, apart from waking up yesterday morning with a stuffy nose, aching limbs and a dry cough. Feeling quite ropey today actually and even the boss didn't recognise my voice.

I was over the moon with the Leicester Tigers performance in the Guiness Premiership Final on Saturday!! Two Trophies in the bag, one to go!

Good Points; The fantastic team performance and score-line against the top of the table Gloucester side. (Incidentally, Football Association take note that Leicester would have topped the table had they not had a point deducted for fielding an ineligable player!)

Bad Point; Not finding a pub in Leicester that had Sky and allowed under 18's as I had my daughters with me!

Don't know what to do next weekend when we play Wasps on Sunday in the Heineken Cup Final......................?

Back From My Holiday

I'm back, did you miss me?
No, oh well.....

Wow, when the weather is nice Cornwall is loverly!
But when the weather is bad......

Here are some pictures I took.

(thanks to Jeff for the loan of a Canon 70-300 DO IS)

Something for nothing

I was helping my friend at the weekend on a big shoot for a new short film he's directing, using a stop-motion technique. He bought some CF "SanDisk Extreme III" cards...dispite my warning.... from everyones favourite 21st century carboot-sale: eBay.

Predictably they were fake. Although pretty convincing copies, even down to the packaging, serial no. and holographs they are easiy to spot when you sell authentic versions. Usually they are a write once (and then die!) or are a cheaper slower memory brand and display poor performance.

As a side note.. I read somewhere faking digital media is more profitable then forging 100 dollar bills....!

How much will your shoot cost if the disk wont read after an hour? I predict the whole bloody system will fall over when we shoot next week. Watch this space.

Remember kids, if it's too good to be true, it probably is.

Art Nude Course?

After the success for my portait lighting courses and the Glamour/Figure ones as well, I have had a few requests to put together a one day Art Nude studio course. Possibly one in Lacock (near Bath) and one in Birmingham. Anyone interested or have any comments?

Illegal Software? Prepare to be Embarrassed

I was out at a large west London studio yesterday demoing some Phase One gear. It was a big shoot with multiple assistants, stylists, colourists, prop people and a separate retouching company. We had to upgrade the version of Capture One the re-toucher was using but when we did so we go a 'Trial Period Expired' warning.
After much head scratching, calls to the re-toucher's offices and attempts at re-loading I had a feeling something wasn't quite right.
A quick look at the 'About Capture One' box confirmed my suspicions....

They were using a cracked copy!

I got the feeling the guy would have got his credit card out there and then to avoid that sort of embarrassment!

So as not to delay things further, we installed our rental software and the day went on. After the initial hiccup the day went perfectly.